The present invention relates to a system for managing sales of goods for vending machines, and in particular pertains to a system for rationally carrying out stock control of goods for vending machines and rationally supplying the goods thereto, and a system therefor.
A vending machine is a manpower saving machine which automatically sells goods by putting coins or a card, which is used instead thereof, into the vending machine. The vending machines are roughly classified into three kinds of goods (foodstuffs, drinks, tobacco, etc.), service (money change, coin lockers, etc.), and information (public telephone, automatic weightmeters, etc.), depending to goods to be sold.
There are many kinds specially in vending machines which deals with drinks. They are classified according on the contents of goods (soft drinks, alcohol drinks, milk-oriented drinks), vessels (bottles, cans, cups), and temperature (hod, cold). In a vending machine which sells goods, it is necessary supply goods after the goods is sold.
Whereas, vending machines are installed at various places in city zones, parks, buildings, etc. However, conventionally, in a case where goods is supplied to vending machines, goods which is out of stock are displayed on the panel of a vending machine, whereas information concerning which and how many goods are sold and which and how many goods are left over can not be obtained at the goods control center. The same can be known for the first time by opening the panel of a vending machine at site. Therefore, when supplying goods to vending machines, it is usual that many kinds of goods are conveyed to the site by predicting the quantity of sales of goods in advance and every item of goods must be checked for whether or not they are out of stock, at each of vending machines. Accordingly, for example, as regards vending machines installed at a high story floor, all the goods dealt in the vending machines must be brought into the high story site. At this time, if there are no goods which are short when the vending machine is opened, all the goods brought into the site must be taken back as they are.
As described above, since there are many items of goods in vending machines dealing with soft drinks and those goods of different manufacturers are added thereto, the number of goods which must be prepared for supply will be made huge. Thus, resultantly bringing goods not necessary for supply into the site are not rational nor reasonable in view of the goods sales management. As a prior technology to cope with this disadvantage, a method for transmitting information regarding the quantity of stocks from a vending machine to the goods control center over a telephone line at predetermined times has been known.
However, with this method, since information transmission is commenced at predetermined times at the respective vending machines, such a case occurs, where the transmissions from a number of vending machines are carried out at the same time zone, and telephone lines are busy. In this case, at each of the vending machines, retransmission is tried until the communication with the goods control center becomes possible. Resultantly, at the goods control center side, it is impossible to obtain information in a desired sequence at a desired time. Although it is possible that the set times of each of the vending machines are gradually changed at a suitable interval, in a case where vending machines are newly installed at new places or increased at the existing places, it will become difficult to keep suitable intervals of information transmission time and transmission sequence matched to the convenience of delivery vehicles. Furthermore, in a case where it is desired that the information transmission frequency from each of vending machines is changed according to holidays or a long-term vacation of an enterprise where vending machines are installed or according to an increase or a decrease of people in downtown where vending machines are installed, it is impossible to easily cope with such situations with conventional technologies. In order to solve these disadvantages and inconveniences, it was necessary to carry out very cumbersome operations which were to go around to change the set time of information transmission at a number of or all of vending machines whenever such a request occurred.